How to Be Old

by sssmahh303, posted in Reviews

Mary Ann

I bet you would have appreciated an owner’s manual when you were handed your newborn baby.  A ”How To” book on teenagers would have been helpful as well.  When you had to become an independent woman leaning to be on you own either thorough divorce, a breakup, or widowhood, information is needed to survive such challenges. There should have been some perfect advice to help you out.  Most of life you don’t have a clue what to do about a particular situation because that event is so uniquely yours. 
So, when I found the book, How To Be Old, it caught my attention.  I am old.  Is there a better way to be old?  Let’s find out!  My non-fiction book club partner, L, and I read it together then Cynthia also joined us.  I have included their remarks in this review.  
                               

                                        
How To Be Old is written by Lyn Slater. You would recognize Lyn from her many ads over the years.  She is the trim, petite, white-haired lady with the great haircut and big sunglasses.  Chic in every way!   Her blog, the Accidental Icon, chronicles her fashion adventures, and it eventually morphed into the book, How to Be Old.  It documents her life from years 60 to 70, and how she makes the very best of whatever she has, wrinkles and all. 

Most of us would not have the opportunities that were presented to her.  Her savvy fashion sense led to modeling contracts with international fashion houses, photo shoots around the world, attending fashion weeks, and on and on.  It is just fun to witness her many adventures. 

However, embedded in each chapter, Lyn shares a nugget of wisdom that are universal to all women.  She is a professor, a daughter, a mother, a grandmother, and a partner to an interesting man.  All while she juggles the world of fashion!  Lyn’s love of clothes is deep in her soul.  This is her passion. She tells us that we each have another chapter regardless of our age.  Each of us have a passion of our own.  We need to discover it and grow it.
This is my impression of How To Be Old.  Let’s see what Cynthia and L gained from the reading:

L found in How to Be Old, Lyn Slater has shown us that we can still be creative and continue to make choices for our older selves.  She also cautions that we need to not be so distracted by the lives we lead outside ourselves, that we forget to nourish our inner selves.

Cynthia enjoyed the fashion journey that Ms. Slater was taking in How to Be Old. Cynthia also the found nuggets of wisdom within the narrative, and she found a very personal message therein.  “I was moved by How to Be Old because I was becoming stuck.  I have been goal-oriented, self-starting, and determined most of my life. Yes, I caught myself looking into the mirror and thinking that older woman looking back at me had nothing left to give.  Lynn’s memoir of her 60s reminded me to look up and see all the mature women starting new initiatives, taking chances, and embracing age.  I thank her for this insight.”

How to Be Old is a fun, easy read. You can go as deep as you like because there are some excellent life lessons in the chapters. If you love fashion, it is the cherry on top of the book. Enjoy!  Cynthia, L, and I did!  
 

My Tinker Box

by sssmahh303, posted in Lifestyle

Mary Ann

Have you ever seen the magazine, Where Women Create? It is an exquisite collection of spaces where woman make beautiful arts and crafts, write books, and birth other creative endeavors.  The stories of these makers are told, and their homes and workspaces are shared.  As you leaf through the magazine, it is fun to daydream about having a creative space just for you.  

I have owned two homes and been lucky enough to have a creativity space in each one.  In my current home, I have a primary suite that has a room off the bedroom that is about 12’x12’.  I call it The Tinker Box.  It is where I lose myself, where I fully immerse myself in my various passions – I write, draw, make jewelry, do crafts, wrap gifts, work on my photography, and dream a lot.  It is my happy place, a place where time stands still. 

Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (can you imagine learning how to spell that name in First Grade?) coined the term Flow which means to be fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and enjoyment in the process of the activity (thank you Wikipedia for the definition.)  In the zone is another way of saying it!  So having a space where you can experience what you love is a special gift that you give yourself.  

I spent a considerable amount of time designing this space.  The walls are painted white with a black fan.  There is a large window that I left plain so I can fully open it up to view the pond and wooded areas near my home.  

I painted a big kitchen table black and got a large piece of class cut to cover the top of the table.  This is my desk and workspace for projects.  I bought 4 tall, black bookcases each with 7 shelves from a cabinet company and that stores all my projects. Two bookcases are behind where I sit at the table, and they house my photography equipment, photography books, and many containers of photos.  There is a bookcase on each side of the table making a big a big T.  One is where I keep my general craft materials and the other has my writing materials.  I color coded them with containers from Big Lots and Dollar Tree – green for photography, orange for craft materials, and blue for writing. The color really stand out on the black shelves adding color to the room.  

Under the window there are low black bookcases from Wayfair. I use that to store all my ribbon and decorative items for gift wrapping.  I also store some of my teaching materials there.  On the opposite wall from the table and bookcases is a credenza where I store personal paperwork and travel info.  On top of credenza is a lamp, TV, and printer.  There is a little table next to it where I have a small refrigerator and an electric hot-water kettle. 

The walls are full of framed posters and inspirational signs.  There is a vision board reflecting my retirement aspirations.   A bulletin board is nestled between the two bookcases and above the table.  I also have a merry-go-round horse on the wall that once hung in my daughter’s nursery.  Everywhere I look is something that has meaning for me.  My puppets (that is for another blog) and knick-knacks – tchotchkes – are sprinkled around the shelves. 

I am writing this blog as I sit in my Tinker Box.  It is where I can make my dreams come true and let my creative spirit run wild.  It is where my imagination blooms, and my passions can take wing. It is where I have fun, and it is a safe place to take risks. It is where magic happens, and I  am so thankful to have this special space for creativity.

Shell Seeker

by sssmahh303, posted in Friends and Family

Do you remember at the end of the eighties, in fact 1987, when Rosamond Pritchard’s Shell Seeker became an international best seller?  Pritchard is a wonderful storyteller and at the time she had a huge following. Her stories captured family dynamics, warts and all, in a magical and engaging way.  

I really don’t remember the plot, but there is a line in the book that has stayed with me for all these years.  It was “The best gift parents could give their children was their independence.” I hope I got that right.  I was a parent at the time, yet I don’t think I really understood the power of those words.  As my parents aged, I began to appreciate what Pritchard was saying.  My parents gave my brother and me a precious gift in staying independent as long as they could take care of themselves and when they couldn’t, they had saved money for long-term care in their home.  This allowed us the freedom to have our own lives.  So many people today are caring for elderly family members, and their lives are not their own.  They care with love and dedication.  God Bless them.  However, their lives revolve around another person. It is wearing on everyone.

Now that I am older, I am tying very hard to follow my parents’ example.  I want to give this gift of my independence to my own children so they can have their own lives.  I have tried to put away as much money as I can, live as healthy as I can, and prepare my home for mature living while I can.  As people live longer, the care of the elderly will have to be addressed as a society. Only 7% of older people have long-term care policies. Those policies are expensive and limiting.  Unless you are rich, this is going to be a challenge for most people with their parents.  

This is the time to think about all of this for yourself.  Let Rosamond Pritchard’s words ring true and guide you to make some important decisions about your and your children’s future.

Note: Ms. Pritchard’s books have been reissued so you still get them on Amazon.  There are some Shell Seeker movies on Netflix as well.  I intend to reread the Shell Seekers whose words helped shape my world. 

Mary Ann

The Dirty Dozen

by Cynthia, posted in Wellness

Admittedly, I lean towards healthy eating and a fairly health lifestyle. I have been a vegetarian for most of my life. My mother often told the story of four-year-old Cynthia who was very thin and would not eat. Mom was a good cook, offering meat, potatoes, salad, and a vegetable at almost every evening meal.

Mom and daddy took me to the doctor to resolve this problem. Dr. Campbell, the family doctor, suggested they let me fill my own plate and they quit nagging me about eating.  They did both. Within days I began eating … mostly the vegetables. I ate a bite or two of meat but focused on salads, fruits, and vegetables. Growing up, my go-to after-school snack was a combination salad with thousand island dressing and Ritz crackers. Occasionally, I enjoy that combination today, although most of my salad dressings are oil and acid-based (vinegars, citrus) these days.

Research has shown the adage of “you are what you eat” holds true. As an adult, it is no wonder I turn to organic choices whenever possible. The idea of eating products covered with pesticides and laced with hormones makes my skin crawl. To help my shopping for clean foods, I found the Environmental Working Group’s (EWG) “Shopper’s Guide to Pesticides in Produce” a helpful resource. They publish an annual Dirty Dozen tm and Clean Fifteen tm which lists the produce grown with the most pesticides and least pesticides, respectively. (See the link below.) The EWG also lists foods in the middle of the spectrum.

Forty-six foods were tested with over 46,000 samples for 2024.  At the top of the pesticide-infested scale are strawberries, spinach, kale and related greens, grapes, peaches, pears, nectarines, apples, bell and hot peppers, cherries, blueberries, and green beans. If I cannot find these in organic options, I simply do not purchase them.

The website indicates the following “19 items were included in the fruit and vegetable testing data from the USDA and FDA but do not fall into either the Dirty Dozen or Clean Fifteen lists.” They are tomatoes, winter squash, cherry tomatoes, celery lettuce, tangerines cucumbers, summer squash, broccoli, potatoes, plums, eggplant, raspberries, grapefruit, snap peas, oranges, cantaloupe, bananas, and cauliflower.

Those items that have the least amount of pesticides include carrots, sweet potatoes, mangoes, mushrooms, watermelon, cabbage, kiwi, honeydew melon, asparagus, frozen sweet peas, papaya, onions, pineapple, sweet corn, and avocados.

Noted is that sweet corn, papaya, and summer squash sold in the US are produced from genetically modified seeds. IF GMOs are a concern for you, by organic varieties.

Buying organic can be more expensive, so many people opt for non-organic products. My philosophy dictates that I would rather pay more now for healthy food than for doctors and pharmaceuticals later. Obviously, each person must weigh his/her values, beliefs, and options.

For more information see:  https://www.ewg.org/foodnews/full-list.php

Goals

by sssmahh303, posted in Taking Care of Business

Mary Ann

When I was a little girl, I compiled a list of things I wanted to see before I died.  It was a bit serious for a child of 6 or 7.  However, I am sure that I read about some of these wonders of nature in my Weekly Reader(Remember Weekly Reader?), and I didn’t want to miss anything. My list included: a hummingbird, a falling star, a rainbow, a monarch, and finding a four-leaf clover.  This was my bucket list as a child.  It was more like a small pail than a bucket. 

Eventually, I saw everything, and my little Bible was full of four-leaf clovers. Since those early years, I continued setting goals – getting a puppy, going to college, and on and on.  I never did talk my parents into getting me a horse. I had a perfect plan for a stable by our creek.  

Fast forward to adulthood, and it was time for grown-up goals.   You can set goals, but life has a way of changing everything thus changing your goals.  Nevertheless, every New Year, I would create a list. I bet you do, too!  Then a few months go by, and the goals are forgotten until the next New Year.  It is kind of a vicious cycle.  So how do you get a handle on setting goals?

Since I have been keeping in touch with Cynthia, we have done annual goals.  No one else I know does goals as well as Cynthia.  She makes spread sheets, lists goals with sets of to-do lists and deadlines, and we set goal reviews on Zoom every few months. it all puts me to shame.  I have created all the same sheets, but I just couldn’t keep up. 

So, this year, I decided I was going to make a few big goals and keep it simple.   I created four meaningful goals that included: the Blog, my Estate Notebook, my School Materials, and Healthy Living – So far so good.  Cynthia and I got Silver Sage Sisters up and running.  I have written 24 blogs.  We do need to get better with the photos, and I promise we are working on that.  I went through my School Materials and have found homes for most it. I need to get my Estate Notebook finished to make my inevitable passing easier for my family when it comes. Finally, Healthy Living is moving along.  I really want to create menus of healthy recipes, so I can plan meals and my shopping list.  I waste too much food which makes me very guilty when I throw it out.  I also started working out on the machines at the gym, and I can tell I am stronger. Now, at the half-way point of the year, I am at a pretty good place.  All the goals’ loose ends will be finished by year’s end. This is the best I have ever been with goals at the mid-point.

Another technique that has been very helpful is working with a buddy.  It makes you accountable, and you can cheerlead one another on.  Cynthia and friend L have done this with me for health goals and financial goals.  If you do one small thing, they will add up to the one big thing you want to accomplish.  It also makes it fun to tag team with a bud.

Please know that Cynthia and I do some goals over and over.  It is funny because we don’t ever seem to get ahead. An example of this is organizing our cookbooks and recipes.  I think I could have my cookbooks suddenly disappear and nothing would change.  Again, I am constantly finding new recipes, so the pile of clippings and new cookbooks keeps growing.  In any given year, I can hardly get all my favorite meals prepared let alone new ones, yet I try.  It really isn’t that bad of a problem, and it all tastes good!

In conclusion, when goal setting, keep it simple, determine what really matters to you, and get a buddy to keep you honest.  It has worked for me this year, so it will be my goal to keep doing it.   

The Idea of You

by Cynthia, posted in Reviews

Mom and I recently watched a a romantic comedy starring Ann Hathaway, Nicholas Galitzine, and Ella Rubin, among others. Based on a novel by Robinne Lee, the film was a delightful flick about a 40-year-old single mother who, through a series of unexpected events, becomes involved with a 24-year-old boy band star. Her daughter is 16.

On a basic level, the movie was sweet, sometimes sad, sometimes funny. Refreshingly, there were few curse words and sexual innuendoes were suggested and limited. The film was a nice reprieve from the many dark movies now on the market. Finding a movie that can be understood and enjoyed by a 95-year-old with mild dementia and a 70-year-old who is trying to fill an evening while confined to quarters is a challenge. Especially when almost every night a movie is entertainment.

The story weaves the lives of a divorced mother of a teenager whose father (and his girlfriend) is still in the picture, the coming-of-age girl, and the challenges of a hot rock star. It highlights the various tribulations caused by living a modern life — the indignant father who himself had cheated on his wife, the daughter who is supportive until her friends at school begin making snide remarks, and the rock star who has trouble trusting someone’s intentions.

A disappointing twist (not from the picture but from the way people react) was highlighted when all kinds of people expressed their judgmental opinions as to the morals of the mother.  Why do we in society find acceptable a man who dates or marries at woman 20 years younger yet when a woman dates a man sixteen years younger, she is labeled with various negative descriptors? The idea highlights continued gender and age-related injustices. Personally, I appreciated the film broaching this issue. I believe each of us has our own challenges in life and we are not aware of anyone else’s situation. Therefore, let us not judge others.

All-in-all I thoroughly enjoyed viewing the film for the social issues raised, yet more importantly for the sheer pleasure of the story line. The Idea of You is available on Prime Video. Enjoy!

Cynthia

A Kiss Is Still A Kiss

by sssmahh303, posted in Lifestyle

As the song, As Time Goes By, says A Kiss is Still A Kiss. Or is it? There are all kinds of kisses. The slobbery kisses of a puppy or the scratchy lick of kitty are loving gestures to their humans.  A butterfly kiss from a little child with a flutter of eyelashes to your cheek is just precious. And who can forget when you were passionately kissed by someone you love or loved, when your knees buckle, and you fall into a swoon.  All of this is true, but there are still many other kinds of kisses in the world.  

When you travel to the Galapagos Islands, you experience one of Earth’s most unique places.  It is truly the peaceable kingdom where animals and man can coexist without fear of one another.  I experienced this during my visit.  I decided to spend some quiet time on the beach and do some sketching.  I sat crisscross applesauce among 20 or so seals that were scattered around the beach taking naps and sunbathing.  They were only a few feet from me. Nowhere else on Earth could you do this.  

I happily was sketching the seals and was in the zone not paying too much attention to what was going on around me.  Then I suddenly felt something bristly encircle my knee.  I looked down and a baby seal was touching my knee with its nose.  I was being kissed by a seal.  I sat there is shock, and the little guy scooched by me and nestled in the sand a few feet away falling immediately to sleep.  Mother did not seem to be around, and the other seals paid no attention to us.  I then sketched my new friend.  When I left the beach, I took more than my sketches.  I took a priceless memory of my sweet encounter with the baby seal – I got a whisker kiss, and it made me swoon!  

There is a Giraffe Center in Nairobi, Kenya, where you can have a close encounter of the tall kind.  A staircase takes you up to a wraparound deck to meet the giraffes at their level.  Giraffe kibble was available to purchase to feed them.  I wonder if Purina made them for the giraffes as they make many kinds of animal kibble – imagine bags of giraffe kibble among cat and dog food.  

The giraffes were ready for a treat.  Luckily for me there were not many people there, so I got lots of attention from the giraffes wanting their goodies. You could feed them by hand and pet their patterned faces.  They have big, beautiful, brown eyes that are like mirrors where you can see yourself.  If you are more daring, you can place a piece of kibble between your lips, and the giraffe will take the kibble from you.  I did just that. Their big, soft, floppy lips gently touch my lips as they took the kibble. I was being kissed by a giraffe -What a sweet memory for me from Africa.

Finally, my family was on vacation at the Jersey Shore near Atlantic City.  My Father wanted to go fishing.  It was a terrible day, cold and rainy.  We went on a fishing cruise that took us to a nearby inlet to fish. Dressed in giant yellow slickers, we casted our fishing lines into the choppy water.  Hours passed, I really mean hours, and no one caught a fish.  It was a long afternoon when suddenly my Father caught a tiny shark about 6 to 8 inches long.  (As the years passed, the shark got bigger with each retelling of the tale.) It was a perfect shark in miniature.  

Since the book and later the movie, Jaws, I have always been terrified of sharks.  Intellectually, I know sharks are necessary to the ocean ecosystem, but emotionally, they can eat you.  Right before my Father tossed the shark back into the water, I asked him to give it to me.  I was going to face my fear.  In my hands I was holding a SHARK!  Its skin was like sandpaper, and it was thrashing a bit.  I am sure it was just as scared of me as I was of it.  Right then I decided to plant a big kiss on its head and send it on its way.  Off it went into the deep blue sea. Now, I am still a little afraid of sharks, but my new fear is the shark will return to kiss me.  I don’t think there is a sweet way for a shark to kiss you.  Duuuunnnn duun…

Mary Ann 

When Life Gives You Lemons ….

by Cynthia, posted in Uncategorized

One of my favorite aunts has a birthday two days before Independence Day. Naturally, people like to give her patriotic-themed gifts. This year I decided to branch out, so to speak. I wanted to do something special for her that wasn’t red, white, and blue.  Don’t get me wrong. I love America, Old Glory, Red/White/Blue, and patriotic décor. Yet it seems everyone gives her July 4th types of gifts.

Aunt Kathy is always going the extra mile for her friends and family. She works tirelessly at hosting dinners and parties, always presenting perfectly designed food and tablescapes. Nothing I do can match her expertise. Still, I wanted to select a theme that was timely and befitting such an elegant woman.

My cousin’s wife who helped with the party suggested spaghetti and marinara for the menu. I began thinking “Italian.”  Gift shopping at a favorite local interior design store, I came across a cookbook entitled “Lemon, Love, and Olive Oil” by Mina Stone. Next to the book was displayed lemon-infused olive oil.  I was reminded of my visit to the Amalfi Coast and a lemon farm. Perfect! The theme would be lemons! Bright yellow as the summer sun, sweet as lemonade, and cheery for a hot summer evening.

I curated a basket with the cookbook, olive oil, and a few lemon-related items — Lemon pepper, a zester tool with a juicer on the other end, a pour spout for the oil, lemon motif tea towel, and some additional lemon/kitchen items. I dotted the items with artificial lemons and spruced up the basket with yellow silk flowers.  The basket became part of the dining room décor until after dinner when she opened gifts.


Antipasto platters are amazing for appetizers and to complement pasta. Pickled vegetables, a variety of both hard and soft cheeses, sliced figs, grapes, marcona almonds, prosciutto and salami served with crostini made for yummy munching.

Dinner consisted of a pasta bar, fruit tray, and antipasto platter which also served as the appetizer while guests enjoyed iced tea or lemonade. (This crew does not imbibe so wine was not served, but a crisp sauvignon blanc or chianti would go perfectly.) Pasta bars can be elaborate, but for only eight people I kept it simple – bucatini (instead of spaghetti), farfalle, and a gluten-free penne could be topped with meatballs, sautéed vegetables, and homemade marinara or alfredo sauces. Soft, warm, garlic bread sticks rounded out the main course.

For the fruit tray I made watermelon and cantaloupe balls sprinkled with blueberries served in the small watermelon shell at the corner of a large square tray, accompanied by sliced nectarines, avocados, strawberries, apricots, apples, and sprigs of green and red grapes.

Of course dessert had to include lemon bars. My cousin’s wife brought Bundtinis in lemon, and three additional flavors. I had planned to make gelato but ran out of time. No one seemed to miss the ice cream.

Most of the food could be made the day before, so only the pasta was cooked an hour before guests were to arrive. Usually I would not slather pasta with olive oil, but I read several sources that suggested a high-grade olive oil would keep the pasta from drying out while keeping it warm. It worked fine. The key was to enjoy the guests upon arrival.

The evening was hot outside, the feeling inside warm and inviting. Family members talked and laughed or as the saying goes, ate, drank, and made merry.  Although the theme was lemons, the evening was sweet, befitting for one of my favorite people.

Just the Right Book

by sssmahh303, posted in Wellness

Have you ever had the experience where you were plagued by a problem or were facing a challenging time in life, and suddenly you find just the right book or the right article to help you find the answers to your dilemma?  It has happened to me so many times that I have lost count.  I think it is divine intervention.  It may be that I am open to finding direction and then the universe provides.    Regardless of how it happens, I am thankful.

Books have been known for a long time to have power to change a life.  Bibliotherapy is the term for this.  It sometimes is called Book Therapy.  It is a creative arts therapy that uses specific reading texts to help with various issues. You may not be in therapy, but books can really help make a difference in your life.

The books can be fiction or nonfiction.  The Little Paris Bookshop by French author, Nina George, is a charming tale about Monsieur Perdu who is the proprietor of a bookstore that is housed in a barge on the Seine.  He sees himself as a “literary apothecary” because he intuits the exact book a customer needs; he “prescribes” novels for the hardships of life. It seems that finding the right book is universal. For the remainder of the book, Perdu sets out to find his long-lost love as he navigates his bookstore barge down the French rivers dispensing books and wisdom along the way. This work of fiction is a delightful French adventure that denotes the power of books.  

My friend, L, and I started a nonfiction book club at the beginning of the Covid Pandemic. I shared this with you in the past.  It is still going strong because it has been so powerful in our lives.  The topics have educated us in health, wealth, and happiness. Not all the books have been great, yet there are always nuggets of wisdom in each book. However, there are some books, just the right books, that have been life changing for each of us or both of us.  In Martha Beck’s The Way of Integrity, Finding the Path to Your True Self, Ms. Beck claims that books are teachers, soul guides. She states on page 42, “Reading is the way I’ve met most of my life teachers, and clients often tell me that just when they felt most confused, the perfect book seems to ‘throw itself off the shelf’ and into their attention.”  Again, the power of just the right book signifies their importance in our lives.  

The Way of Integrity has been a meaningful book for us.  A Life in the Light, Meditations on Impermanence by Mary Pipher is another. Silver Sage Sisters, you will identify with her memoir because you too have walked the same path as she in years’ past.  My copy of The Comfort Book by Matt Haig is dog-eared throughout. The collection of essays offers comfort in every way, plain and simple.  Untamed by Glennon Doyle is a book about living fully and authentically.  Her truth was different from my life, yet I understand that for many of us, we created a life that others wanted for us rather than the one we would have chosen for ourselves if given the opportunity.  We are currently reading Brené Brown’s Rising Strong.  We love Brene Brown, and of course, she has written her books just for us. 

All the forementioned books are great reads for both education and for enjoyment.  Books are friends, helpful friends that lead us to see the world with different perspectives.   Special books can indeed change our lives.  

A Boodle

by sssmahh303, posted in Taking Care of Business

My dear friend, Patty, would often talk about having a boodle.  Her mother told her that every woman needed a boodle, a stash of her own money, often secret.  I had never heard of it before Patty used it.  I thought it was a Yiddish word, but it’s not. I thought it was a family word. It was not.  However, boodle is a real word. A boodle means a large quantity of something, often ill-gotten money. It is from the Dutch word boedel from the 1600s.  A few of our politician have boodles that get them into a lot of trouble. We are going to talk about the good kind of boodle.

When I was a young woman, we really didn’t think about having our own money. You might save your babysitting money or what you made as a waitress or another job.  You used it to buy clothes or to have a good time. We weren’t taught how to invest or build your credit score.  We hardly knew how to balance our check books if you had one. Then we married and often our husbands took over the finances. I imagine many women had their own boodles from pennies pinched here and there that was stashed away somewhere in the pantry.

 I was a military wife, so I had to do the bills since often my husband was deployed. That was a blessing in disguise for me.  When my husband left me, my eyes opened, not how to pay a bill, but how economics worked.  I had no credit since my credit was tied to my husband’s.  Yet, I was responsibility for caring for two children. 

 I had a good, stable job which was lifesaving for my family.  I was able to get a place to live since I had the money for deposits. The car was a whole other ball game.  With no credit, it was hard to get a loan for a car.  A very nice salesman at the Renault dealership worked very hard to get me a lease so I had a car.  That kind man was a guardian angel.  Angels come in different forms. 

As time passed, and I slowly began building a credit history by paying the rent and the car lease payments, I bravely applied for a Shell gas card.  When I got approved for it, I was walking on air.  I had a credit card. I had a new beginning to take care of myself and my family. Then, the big whammy hit.  My ex did not pay the bills that had my name on it, so what little credit I had built was now in danger. I was back in the hole again. I ended up slowing paying off the loans and credit cards of the joint accounts.  You need to be careful what you sign – if your name is on the account, you are responsible regardless the circumstances. 

I wish I had a boodle.  I could have taken better care of myself if the “stash” was available. I could have eased the challenges I faced.  However, I may not have learned the money lessons I needed to learn. Obviously, I did thrive on my own and grew my credit history.  It was not easy, but it can be done. I am living proof. 

When I became a principal, I would always tell my young female teachers to build their own credit, grow their savings, invest in their retirement, and create a boodle which today is an emergency fund.  It is easier today for women to build credit and manage money but not necessarily easy.  I would also give this advice to older women for many of them still don’t know how to manage their finances.  Life can change so quickly from the passing of a spouse to an unexpected divorce.  It is always better to be prepared.  If you don’t know where to begin, I suggest reading Jane Bryant Quinn’s How to Make Your Money Last or Get Good with Money by Tiffnay Aliche.  Both finance books can help you to self-educate.  You can do it! 

Mary Ann